Santa Rosa Island Hunting Preserve Dealt Blow

Who says serving in Congress isn't a contact sport? The latest blow in the battle over whether Santa Rosa Island, part of Channel Islands National Park, will be transformed into a high-end hunting preserve for disabled military veterans has been landed by Senators Diane Feinstein and Barbara Boxer of California. The two Democrats inserted language into a military spending bill that would reject language Representative Hunter Duncan single-handedly attached back in September to a military authorization bill that President Bush signed last month. That language provided for the hunting preserve on the 52,794-acre island off California's coast. The Senate passed a military spending bill with the Feinstein-Boxer language on a voice vote yesterday. Now the final say will have to be hashed out in a House-Senate conference committee assigned to resolve differences between the two chambers' spending bills. Of course, you have to ask yourself why this issue is even before Congress. The family that would benefit from the hunting preserve agreed back in 1986, in return for $30 million, to end its hunting operations by 2011. On top of that, paralyzed veterans groups have said they're not interested in the proposal.